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Row Reduction Over A Field

We’re quite eager to get to applications of algebraic topology to things like machine learning (in particular, persistent homology). Even though there’s a massive amount of theory behind it (and we do plan to cover some of the theory), a lot of the actual computations boil down to working with matrices. Of course, this means we’re in the land of linear algebra; for a refresher on the terminology, see our primers on linear algebra.

In addition to applications of algebraic topology, our work with matrices in this post will allow us to solve important optimization problems, including linear programming. We will investigate these along the way.

"A good stock of examples, as large as possible, is indispensable for a thorough understanding of any concept, and when I want to learn something new, I make it my first job to build one." - Paul Halmos